Helicopters heading to aid passengers and crew aboard a South Korean ferry sinking off the island of Byungpoong in Jindo on April 16, 2014. Two bodies have been recovered and 368 people rescued from a South Korean ferry that capsized at sea on April 16 with 477 passengers and crew on board, a senior government official said.

South Korea Hunts for Company Boss in Ferry Disaster

South Korean prosecutors said on Friday they were seeking a warrant for the arrest of the head of the family that owns the operator of a ferry that capsized last month.

They accused Yoo Byung-un of embezzling funds from ferry operator Chonghaejin Marine, which they see as one of the factors that hampered its safety management and led to the sinking that killed hundreds of school children.

The Sewol, overloaded and traveling too fast on a turn, capsized and sank on a routine journey from Incheon on the mainland to the southern holiday island of Jeju.

Of the 476 passengers and crew on board, 339 were children and teachers on a high school outing. Only 172 people have been rescued and the remainder are all presumed to have drowned.

South Korean prosecutors are hunting for Yoo and his children, visiting the home of his elder son and a religious compound where Yoo is believed to have holed up.

They have already sought the arrest of Yoo's second son and a daughter who stay overseas but no one has been found yet.

Yoo's two sons, Yoo Hyuck-ki and Yoo Dae-kyun, are majority owners of Chonghaejin Marine through an investment vehicle.

Hundreds of members of the Evangelical Baptist Church, of which Yoo is a founding member, built a blockade in front of the compound, describing the probe by prosecutors as religious persecution.